Scripture: Our Roadmap for the Journey: Daniel 2:24-35 / SOAP: 28a
When God gave Daniel the gift of interpreting the meanings of visions and dreams, He was clearly setting him up with a platform to make Him known to the King. We also see that Daniel sets God up for praise by boldly extolling God’s power to the King (2:28-30). As someone who isn’t always as confident and courageous as I would like to be, I stand in awe of Daniel’s confident and brave spirit. I also appreciate that he clarifies that his confidence is not in himself but God.1
Today’s Love God Greatly Journal entry offers a beautiful insight into today’s journey.
We hear this in his prayer (2: 19-23) and in his response to the King (2:28-30). ↩︎
19 That night the secret was revealed to Daniel in a vision. Then Daniel praised the God of heaven. 20 He said, “Praise the name of God forever and ever, for he has all wisdom and power. 21 He controls the course of world events; he removes kings and sets up other kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the scholars. 22 He reveals deep and mysterious things and knows what lies hidden in darkness, though he is surrounded by light. 23 I thank and praise you, God of my ancestors, for you have given me wisdom and strength. You have told me what we asked of you and revealed to us what the king demanded.”
Daniel 2:19-23. NET
When we last saw Daniel, he had learned that the King had issued a decree for him and his friends to be killed. Daniel went home and told his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah what had happened. He urged them to ask the God of heaven to show them his mercy by telling them the secret so they would not be executed along with the other wise men of Babylon.
Today’s portion of the journey reveals – “that very night, their prayer was answered.” Daniel 2:19
Distress led Daniel and the others to pray… prayer led to God’s answer through a vision given to Daniel … and the answer led to praise – 🦋
The Prayer Was Answered
“The secret was revealed to Daniel in a vision. Then Daniel praised the God of heaven. He said, “Praise the name of God forever and ever, for he has all wisdom and power. He controls the course of world events; he removes kings and sets up other kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the scholars. He reveals deep and mysterious things and knows what lies hidden in darkness, though he is surrounded by light. I thank and praise you, God of my ancestors, for you have given me wisdom and strength. You have told me what we asked of you and revealed to us what the king demanded.” Daniel 2:19-23 NET
Like the Psalmist in Psalm 118, Daniel and his friends prayed to the Lord at the thought of what the King had decreed. Today, our journey reveals that the Lord heard their plea and rescued Daniel and his friends from the ordered execution. As He was with the Psalmist, the Lord was Daniel’s strength; the Lord gave Him victory over the threat of death at the hand of the executioners! – and that is exciting – However, the answer of living by faith in a faithless world lies in the truth of verses 20-22
Both Psalm 118 and Daniel 2:18-22 “reflect not only the urgency of seeking divine help but also the transformative power of faith in God.”
Prayer of Response to the Journey
Father, thank You for reminding us to trust You and do what is right. Help us to “settle in this land” and maintain integrity. Then, we will delight in You, and You will answer our prayers. Help us to commit our future to You, LORD, and to trust You to act on our behalf. – Let us be quick to praise You when we see Your answers, even when and if that answer is ‘no.’ – for we know that even then, You are Good.
based on the LGG Study, Living Faithful in a Faithless Land, w2d2
Scripture: Our Road Map for the Journey / Daniel 2:1-18 / SOAP verse 18
Nebuchadnezzar Has a Disturbing Dream
2 In the second year of his reign Nebuchadnezzar had many dreams. His mind was disturbed and he suffered from insomnia. 2 The king issued an order to summon the magicians, astrologers, sorcerers, and wise men in order to explain his dreams to him. So they came and awaited the king’s instructions.
3 The king told them, “I have had a dream, and I am anxious to understand the dream.” 4 The wise men replied to the king: [What follows is in Aramaic] “O king, live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will disclose its interpretation.” 5 The king replied to the wise men, “My decision is firm.[n] If you do not inform me of both the dream and its interpretation, you will be dismembered[o] and your homes reduced to rubble! 6 But if you can disclose the dream and its interpretation, you will receive from me gifts, a reward, and considerable honor. So disclose to me the dream and its interpretation.” 7 They again replied, “Let the king inform us of the dream; then we will disclose its interpretation.” 8 The king replied, “I know for sure that you are attempting to gain time, because you see that my decision is firm. 9 If you don’t inform me of the dream, there is only one thing that is going to happen to you. For you have agreed among yourselves to report to me something false and deceitful until such time as things might change. So tell me the dream, and I will have confidence that you can disclose its interpretation.”
10 The wise men replied to the king, “There is no man on earth who is able to disclose the king’s secret, for no king, regardless of his position and power, has ever requested such a thing from any magician, astrologer, or wise man. 11 What the king is asking is too difficult, and no one exists who can disclose it to the king, except for the gods—but they don’t live among mortals!”
12 Because of this the king got furiously angry and gave orders to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. 13 So a decree went out, and the wise men were about to be executed. They also sought Daniel and his friends so that they could be executed.
14 Then Daniel spoke with prudent counsel to Arioch, who was in charge of the king’s executioners and who had gone out to execute the wise men of Babylon. 15 He inquired of Arioch the king’s deputy, “Why is the decree from the king so urgent?” Then Arioch informed Daniel about the matter. 16 So Daniel went in and requested the king to grant him time, that he might disclose the interpretation to the king. 17 Then Daniel went to his home and informed his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah of the matter. 18 He asked them to pray for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery so that he and his friends would not be destroyed along with the rest of the wise men of Babylon
Observation and Application of the Journey
Our journey through the first chapter of Daniel bore witness to God’s fingerprints. We saw how God was working behind the scenes on Daniel’s behalf, making the overseer of the court officials sympathetic to Daniel, endowing Daniel and his friends with knowledge and skill in all sorts of literature and wisdom, and giving Daniel insight into all kinds of visions and dreams. On top of this, we hear the King announcing that Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah are ten times better than any of the magicians and astrologers in his empire.
In today’s journey, King Nebuchadnezzar demands an impossible thing from his magicians, astrologers, sorcerers, and wise men. He not only requires them to interpret one of his dreams but to tell him what he had dreamed. When the men are unable to satisfy the King’s request, he becomes furiously angry and gives orders to destroy all the wise men of Babylon, including Daniel and his friends, who had been seen “as ten times better than any of the magicians and astrologers in his empire.”
I love that Daniel didn’t run from the danger; instead, he sought the LORD, his God, and encouraged his friends to pray with him. Daniel’s prayer was for more than mere protection; it was also, and perhaps even more so, for revelation and interpretation of the King’s dream. Once again, Daniel was courageous in his faith and bold in his prayer, both of which set God up to be seen and glorified by the King and all who would witness what God would do.
Daniel’s hope wasn’t in his abilities but in God. He knew that all things were possible with his God. 🦋
Many years ago, I prayed for a specific job for my daughter – not just because she needed a job but because I truly believed, because of things God had already done, that He had positioned her for this job and was opening a door for her to fulfill His call upon her life. To our delight, she was given the job. However, while it was a learning experience, the end result of the job brought much heartache, sorrow, many hurtful losses, and even a certain amount of danger.
There were times when it was hard to see God’s hand, but we trusted His heart and prayed through the losses and, by his mercies, survived the dangers. Our faith was challenged but grew, as did our prayer lives; our hearts were broken and torn apart – even scarred – but those scars are becoming reminders of just how merciful our God is. To God’s glory, much good has come from the devastating ending of what we thought was her dream job – as He has and is showing her/us that while His plan is never to harm us – sometimes the pathway to His will and way can bring hurts and even fearful situations as we see with Daniel.
Heal the wound but leave the scar A reminder of how merciful You are I am broken, torn apart, take the pieces of this heart And heal the wound but leave the scar –
Heal the Wound / Lyrics by Point of Grace
Prayer/Worship Response to the Journey
Father, may we learn from Daniel that we do not need to run in panic but rather trust You and commit our way to You, walking courageously by faith, praying bold prayers – even when the request seems impossible, knowing that with You, nothing is impossible. May others see You, not only in our lives but in the miraculous way You answer us, and may we boldly and quickly give You praise – drawing attention to You, for You are worthy of all blessing, honor, and praise! Give us good and godly friends who we can ask and trust to pray with and for us. And Father, when danger or heartache appears, help us not to grow weary and lose heart, In the name of Jesus -Amen
Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice—alive, holy, and pleasing to God—which is your reasonable service. 2 Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God—what is good and well-pleasing and perfect.
Romans 12:1-2. NET
If we belong to God, He is our Father, and He wants us to live according to His plan and His ways—which are righteous and holy. This will not and cannot happen if we copy the behaviors and customs of the world around us. God’s plan and desire is to transform us into new people, and this starts with changing the way we think. He wants to mold us and make us into His image, specifically, the righteous and holy image of His only begotten Son, Jesus.
Paul exhorts the believers in Rome to present their bodies to God as living, holy, and pleasing sacrifices. This means we will have to forego all the pleasures of the world and our hearts’ desires that do not align with God’s will and pleasure. Please read that again, making sure to understand that we do not have to forego all pleasures or give up all of our heart’s desires – only those that do not align with the will of God. How, in the world we live in, with all of its demands and tempting pleasures, can we faithfully do this? I believe the answer is found in Paul’s instructions: we should not conform to the ways of the world but instead be transformed by the renewing of our minds. One question we can ask ourselves every morning is, will we conform to the ways of the world, or will we be transformed by the renewing of our minds by allowing God to change the way we think?
As God’s people, we are not to adapt to or adopt the ways of the world around us. 🦋
The picture we see played out on the pages of Daniel Chapter 1 is one of a king attempting to transform Daniel and the other Jews, who were God’s chosen people, into the image of a ‘true’ Babylonian by reshaping the way they thought and spoke. At the end of a three-year training program, they would enter the king’s service. Even their names were changed from names that pointed them to the true and living God of Israel to Babylonian names that pointed them to the gods of the Babylonians.
“Everything was going to challenge what they had been taught in Judah.” The question was, “How would they choose to live? Could they make a home in Babylon and remain faithful to their God?”
Love God Greatly / Living Faithful in a Faithless Land / p53 – emphasis added
“What about you, MaryEllen?” Those were the words that popped into my mind as I was rereading the first part of this post that I had written earlier in the day. More questions followed that question … Do my ‘name’, my character and the things about me – ie. my words and the things I do and say point me and others toward the true and living God – or toward the gods and things of this world? – It’s a hard but important question, one I believe is good to ask ourselves from time to time – along with, “How have I chosen to live? Am I remaining faithful to God as I live in this sin-saturated world?”
Paul strongly urged the believers in Rome to give themselves over to the pleasures of God instead of self – to no longer live as though they were still dead in their sins but as ones made alive in Christ, holy and pleasing to God. What he wrote to the believers then is still vital for us as believers today — who “live in a culture that seeks to challenge what the Bible teaches.”1Remember the King in Daniel’s story, how he worked to change the way the young men from Judah thought and spoke and even ate by filling their minds with the literature and language of the Babylonians and their bodies with royal delicacies? The Lord’s Word, His literature, and language have the power to transform us, to reshape the way we think and speak and live, and – as I have found – to change us from the ‘inside out’ as we learn to live by the good, pleasing, and perfect will of our God.
“We need to renew our minds over and over with the Word of God. The better we know God, the more likely we are to trust Him and know that His ways are best even when we can’t understand what is going on.”
Love God Greatly / Living Faithful in a. Faithless Land / p53
Father, how easy it is to let my thoughts be filled and influenced by the world/culture around me. Guard me against this, Father, and let Your ways, Your Words, Your love, and desires saturate – not just my mind but my heart – so that I can know Your good, pleasing, and perfect will and live accordingly. Change me from the inside out – I pray this in the name of Your Son, my Savior – Amen❤️
based on the LGG Study, Living Faithful in a Faithless World / w1d3
Scripture – Our Roadmap for the Journey: Jeremiah 29:4-14/soap 29:7
And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare.”
Jeremiah 29:7 NLT
The Right Perspective
Perhaps one of the most challenging things for a Christian to come to grips with is the realization that we do not live a “charmed life.” The hope and future we have in and through Christ do not guarantee that everything in our lives will be easy or go well. Scripture warns believers that there will be suffering and difficulties in this life, but praise God 💜 It also promises that a beautiful future awaits us.
Observation and Application for the Journey
Exiled with Instructions
We must not overlook that the exiles were God’s people,and they were instructed by God to work to see that the city where they were exiled enjoyed peace and prosperity; they were also to pray to God for “the city” to prosper. In other words, they were to be concerned about the place where God had sent them and the people they were now forced to live in exile with. I can’t help but think of the command Jesus gave to His disciples in the NT to love their enemies and to pray for those who persecuted them.1
The RIGHT PERSPECTIVE
Having the right perspective requires knowing and remembering that God exiled His people only after they refused to do what He told them to do. 2 Reread Jeremiah’s warning and the people’s response in Jeremiah 18:1-12, paying careful attention to verses 11 and 12.
So now, tell the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem this: The Lord says, ‘I am preparing to bring disaster on you! I am making plans to punish you. So, every one of you, stop the evil things you have been doing. Correct the way you have been living and do what is right.’ 12 But they just keep saying, ‘We do not care what you say! We will do whatever we want to do! We will continue to behave wickedly and stubbornly!’” Jeremiah 18:1-12. NET
We also must not miss the “right perspective” we are given through the prophet Jeremiah’s identification of God as the orchestrator of the exile. Yes, God sent His people into exile as a consequence of their rebellion,3 but He had a plan for both the ‘city’ and the ‘exiles.’ The plan was not to harm them but to prosper them, and as Jeremiah went on to write, God knew what He had planned for His people—which was “to give them a future filled with hope.”4
I don’t know that we can fully understand this type of exile, but the thing that hits me with some semblance of understanding is knowing that this world is not our forever home. Peter referred to his fellow believers as “temporary residents and foreigners.” And Paul wrote, “We are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives.” He goes on to say that “we are eagerly waiting for Christ to return as our Savior.” For then, “He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control.”5
Friends, it is important to understand that this promise was specific to the “Nation of Israel,” even more specifically, to the Jews who were in exile in the days of Daniel. However, all who are in Christ share in God’s promise of hope and a future forever with Him! Without this truth and perspective, we will get lost in our misery and struggles, or we will get caught up in the ways of the world around us and turn from our God – missing out on the purpose He has for us here, which is not just biding our time – but working and praying for the salvation of the lost until He returns.
The return of Christ is always presented in Scripture as a great motivation to action, not as a reason to cease from action. In 1 Corinthians 15:58, Paul wraps up his teaching on the rapture by saying, “Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord.” In 1 Thessalonians 5:6, Paul concludes a lesson on Christ’s coming with these words: “So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled.” To retreat and “hold the fort” was never Jesus’ intention for us. Instead, we work while we can. “Night is coming, when no one can work” (John 9:4). Gotquestions.org
Prayer of Response from the Journey
Father, thank You for the reminder that this is not our forever home. We are foreigners and aliens in this world. However, this has also reminded me that we are not to be simply biding our time until You return and we receive our promised citizenship in Your Kingdom. Instead, we are to work and pray for the salvation of the lost as Jesus commissioned His disciples to do – until He returns. Help us, Father, not to be caught up with the cares and struggles of this world but to keep our eyes on You, Your promised return, and Your call upon our lives to live faithfully in this faithless land. – I pray these things in the name of Your Son, Jesus – my Savior and Lord – Amen
WORSHIP RESPONSE TO THE JOURNEY/ BORROWED AND SHARED FROM YOUTUBE
Reflection on the journey
How can you work in your “city” for peace and prosperity?
I will give them hearts that recognize me as the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me wholeheartedly.
Jeremiah 24:7. NLT
Observation and Application from today’s journey
The Heart of God for His People is seen in the “I will” statements God gave through Jeremiah. They must have been great words of encouragement to Jeremiah, words of hope for a heartwrenching and seemingly hopeless situation. God had sent His people into exile because of their rebellion, but here, God tells Jeremiah, “I consider them to be good.” He then proclaims that He will look after their “welfare.” He will also restore them to their land, build them up, and not uproot them. He will give them the desire to acknowledge Him as Lord; He will be their God, and they will be His people. Why? Because God loves them with an everlasting love and, from the beginning of time, was working all things out – not to harm them but to give them hope and a future. The LGG journal for today’s portion of our journey explains this so well that I am sharing it with you here. May it help us as we move forward through the lessons of living faithfully in the land of the faithless.
The Lord gave another message to Jeremiah. He said, 2 “Go down to the potter’s shop, and I will speak to you there.” 3 So I did as he told me and found the potter working at his wheel. 4 But the jar he was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so he crushed it into a lump of clay again and started over…
“O Israel, can I not do to you as this potter has done to his clay? As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand.” –
Jeremiaah 18:1-6. NLT
God is the potter, and we are the clay. He will mold us and make us according to His will.
Observation and Application from the Journey
I love it when God uses memories from our past to highlight the present lessons He is teaching us. When I was a little girl – still in elementary school, my best friend was Penny. Penny’s dad had a workshop in their basement where he worked on ceramics, using molds, paints, and other tools to create works of art that he would place in a kiln, which would eventually reveal their beauty. Penny and I loved going down to the basement when he was working because he would occasionally let us help him create. While I know the process of ceramics doesn’t quite compare to the beautiful picture of the potter and his clay, the memory of Mr. Tucker’s detail and attention to his creations flooded my mind as I began to journal my observations of today’s Scripture about the potter.
I also could not help but think of my life verse, the verse that gave a name to this blog site, mefromtheinsideout, from 2 Corinthians 5:17: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ Jesus the new creation has come, the old has gone the new is here. 🦋
In fact, the old version of a Christian, who they were before they were “in Christ,” is not recoverable. The old is gone, Paul writes. The new has come. All the old dreams and ideas and agendas and purposes have ceased to exist and have been replaced by Christ’s ideas and agendas and purposes in an entirely new creature called “Christian.”
Friends, this truth and challenge/question are from the LGG study journal today and are too good and necessary for the study not to share. I pray you will read them and give them thought and prayerful consideration. After all, we waste our time with these studies, or any others for that matter, if we only read them and walk away, ignoring or quickly forgetting what God has made known.
TRUTH:
“We all like to hear the positive things people say about us. We enjoy being reminded that God loves us, just as we are. But we can be less keen to hear truths such as God detesting our sin. He wants more for us, or He wants us to grow to be more like Jesus.”
CHALLENGE:
Look again at the SOAP verse (Jer. 18:6) . Read it aloud, but replace “nation of Israel/O Israel” with your name
How teachable are you? We are often more focused on the temporary things of this world. God wants to develop your relationship with Him and your character because He is interested in molding us into His likeness. Are you willing to be molded?
Prayer of Response from the Journey
Father, how blessed we are to know Your grace and mercy. How heart-wrenching it is to recall some of the days of my past, but oh, how sweet it is to know Your transforming power! The old has gone, and the new has come! Because of You, I am forever changed, a new creation in Christ Jesus!
As we begin this new study/journey on “Living Faithful in a Faithless Land,” please help us to be teachable, to hear Your Word, and to put it into practice. Guard us from being focused on the temporary things of this world. Help us to grow in our relationship with You, and please develop more of Your character in us. Let us be yielded to You as You mold us and make us according to Your will. – In the Name of Jesus, this is my prayer – Amen and Amen!
Responding in Worship to the Journey (borrowed/Shared from YouTube)
Dear reader, have you known/experienced the life-changing power of God’s mercy and grace? If not, I invite you to read Know These Truths and/or message me so I can share with you the way to a new life in Christ 🦋
Then Jesus said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me.
Luke 9:23
Jesus outlined it for His disciples and anyone who wanted to follow Him, with this invitation in Luke 9:23 – when He said: “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me.” We know from other places in Scripture that true disciples, faithful followers of Christ, must choose a different path than the world. The world teaches a “me first/self-love first” –>then others … but Jesus taught clearly and unapologetically that the love of God and others is most important.1 He even defined that this love was to mimic the way that He had loved us.2
One of my favorite Phil Wickham songs is The Jesus Way. I listen to it far more than any other song in my playlist and was delighted to find a recording of the story behind the song recently. As we approach our new journey on Monday, from the book of Daniel, “Living Faithful in a Faithless Land,” this song and the story behind it seem very appropriate to share today. I pray it’s a blessing – 🦋
If you curse me, then I will bless you If you hurt me, I will forgive And if you hate me, then I will love you I choose the Jesus way
If you’re helpless, I will defend you And if you’re burdened, I’ll share the weight And if you’re hopeless, then let me show you There’s hope in the Jesus way
I follow Jesus I follow Jesus He wore my sin, I’ll gladly wear His name He is the treasure He is the answer Oh, I choose the Jesus way
If you strike me, I will embrace you And if you chain me, I’ll sing His praise And if you kill me, my home is heaven For I choose the Jesus way
I follow Jesus I follow Jesus He wore my sin, I’ll gladly wear His name He is the treasure He is the answer Oh, I choose the Jesus way
And I choose surrender I choose to love Oh, God my Savior, You’ll always be enough I choose forgiveness I choose grace I choose to worship, no matter what I face
I choose the Jesus way I choose the Jesus way I choose the Jesus way I choose the Jesus way
I follow Jesus I follow Jesus He wore my sin, I’ll gladly wear His name He is the treasure He is the answer Oh, I choose the Jesus way
I follow Jesus I follow Jesus He wore my sin, I’ll gladly wear His name He is the treasure He is the answer Oh, I choose the Jesus way Oh, I choose the Jesus way
Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. 30 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ 31 The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.” Mark 12:29-31 NLT ↩︎
So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. John 13:34 NLT ↩︎
This was the verse of the day on the youversion Bible app yesterday morning. After listening to the video and reading the devotional, I knew it had to be what I shared with you today. The verse and the teaching by youversion are beautiful reminders that regardless of where we find ourselves today, scared … lonely … sad … lost … confused about what to do … sick … etc., – we are not alone. We are not stuck. We are not without someone who cares, and who’s able to save. Thank God, there’s no escaping His presence. May the truth of this passage bring hope and peace to your heart and mind and strength and joy to your day.
David, who was Israel’s king around 1000 BC, is the contemplative soul who wrote our verse for the day:
“… even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.”
Psalm 139:10 ESV
Note: Any time a verse seems to start mid-sentence, it’s wise to investigate the broader context of the story. In this case, David is exploring the mind-blowing fact that he can never escape God’s presence.
David realizes that it doesn’t matter if he’s sitting down or standing up, traveling abroad or resting at home, up in heaven or down in the grave, speaking his mind or keeping his thoughts to himself, or even if he somehow ends up next to the most remote ocean on earth.
It’s then that David continues:
“… even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.”
Even there, even here, even everywhere—God is always present to lead and guide, to strengthen and support.
Even if we try to avoid God, or run from His calling on our life, He’s patient to pursue us, to correct us, to direct us.
One thing is certain: He will never leave us.
So, when you’re scrubbing dishes, scrolling on your phone, or sorting through a difficult decision; when you’re hard at work, lazy at home, or soaking up time with the people you love; when you’re heartbroken, when you’re joyful, when you’re doubtful, when you’re hopeful, and even when you’ve made a horrible decision …
“… even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.”
Wherever you find yourself today, know that you’re not alone. You’re not stuck. You’re not without someone who cares, and who’s able to save. Thank God, there’s no escaping His presence.
Today, I’m sharing with you a prayer by Anne Graham Lotz, the daughter of the late Billy Graham. As I read the prayer, I thought of the Psalms that are filled with praise to the God of the universe—like Psalms 8, 19, and 139—but I also thought of Paul’s words to the Colossian believers to think about the things of Heaven and not the things of earth.1This is so important for all believers to remember because the truth is – it is very easy to “give more weight to the pressures and stresses around us than to God’s sovereign plan and awesome power… and lose our focus on God.”
When we lose our focus on God, it is very easy to live according to our old sinful nature rather than the new nature that showcases God in us to the world around us. After all, as Paul wrote, “And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus.”2 This lifestyle requires a God-shaped focus.
A Prayer to Stay Focused
True, Living Lord,
I acknowledge that You are Lord. Lord of the universe, Lord of this planet, Lord of this nation, Lord of this city, Lord of this community, Lord of my life . . . You are Lord of lords. I thank You and praise You, O Lord, for Your blessings and Your grace.
I humbly confess that I too often give more weight to the pressures and stresses around me than to Your sovereign plan and awesome power. I seek out worldly wisdom rather than turning to Your perfect wisdom. I boast in my own strength rather than leaning on Yours. I tend to lose my focus on You.
Lord, help me never forget that, in a world of confusion, You are the Way. In a world of political correctness, You are the Truth. In a world of death, You are eternal Life.
As I refocus on You and Your Word, give me wisdom to make decisions that are right. Give me courage to stand against that which is wrong. Give me patience to navigate my relationships with grace and truth, reflecting the light of Your love in a way that brings life to all I encounter.
Give me everything I need so others may see Jesus in me.
O God, I pray for these things not because I deserve them but because You have invited me to boldly ask for Your blessing in the name of Your Son, our Savior—Jesus.
Me From the Inside Out 